JAPAN: The Emperor Finally Comes to Call

Half a century ago, when he was 19, Crown
Prince Hirohito of Japan boarded the battleship Katori for a six-month
grand tour of Europe. The trip only whetted his appetite for more: in
Paris, he told an American newsman that he hoped a visit to the U.S.
would only be a briefly "deferred pleasure." It turned out to be a long
postponement. Soon after he returned home in 1921, Hirohito was
declared Prince Regent for his deranged father; by 1926 he was Emperor,
and a few years later Japan embarked on the ill-starred...